Gemba Academy

Top 5 Lean Manufacturing Books for Beginners

By Jon Miller - January 5th, 2007

From time to time we get e-mails asking for recommendations on books or articles to read for people who are just starting out learning about Lean manufacturing and how the Toyota Production System applies to their business. The reading

Endless Creativity, Inquisitiveness and Pursuit of Improvement

By Jon Miller - January 2nd, 2007

In his New Year’s address Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe positions 2007 as a foundation building year. He acknowledges both that Toyota sees not only strong growth in demand for their products but also fierce competition. He

Selecting a Management and Improvement System

By Jon Miller - December 28th, 2006

Lean manufacturing is a system for managing and improving production operations. More broadly, Lean manufacturing principles can be applied to manage and improve any type of operation from healthcare to service and distribution, as we

Being an Improvement Agnostic

By Jon Miller - December 27th, 2006

A while ago my colleague and I were doing our best imitations of slick salesmen in front of a group of leaders from a small, local manufacturing firm. We were fired up after a tour of their factory, confident that space could be cut to

Holiday Shopping is Wasteful

By Jon Miller - December 26th, 2006

It’s time for my second annual Boxing Day railing against the waste caused by holiday spending at the year end. This year we find a December 23, 2006 Wall Street Journal article titled How Christmas Brings Out the Grinch in Econo

Note to Toyota: Top Five Things to Do in 2007 as World’s #1 Automobile Manufacturer

By Jon Miller - December 23rd, 2006

According to a Wall Street Journal article today Toyota Is Poised to Surpass GM As the Top Car Maker Next Year. That would be 9.04 million vehicles, just ahead of General Motors. Congratulations are premature, but it’s not too ea

Ford CEO Mullaly’s First Impressions

By Jon Miller - December 22nd, 2006

In the December 22, 2006 Wall Street Journal article titled Mulally’s ‘First Impressions’ published the letter from the former Lean leader of Boeing and now CEO of the Ford Motor to the employees of the company. He st

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 37: The Standard Time Should be the Shortest Time

By Jon Miller - December 21st, 2006

“Speaking of standards, time study is another thing everyone gets wrong.” The typical time study is based on taking 10 times and setting an average time as the standard. Ohno says this is very bad because if you are watchin

When is Point Kaizen OK?

By Jon Miller - December 19th, 2006

Point kaizen refers to small, isolated improvements that are easy to implement quickly. The impact of point kaizens are typically small but they can have a large impact. Point kaizen are in contrast to line kaizen, plane kaizen, cube k

The Starfish, the Spider and the Span of Five

By Jon Miller - December 17th, 2006

I just finished reading The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman nd Rod A. Beckstrom. It is a quick read with some interesting ideas. I have a number of issues with the book, and by

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 36: Only the Gemba Can Do Cost Reduction

By Jon Miller - December 15th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter by demonstrating the Toyota philosophy of “aim for 10X improvement, not 10% improvement”. He instructed Human Resources to give the shop floor 10 people even though they had asked for 100 peo

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 35: The Monaka System

By Jon Miller - December 10th, 2006

How many Japanese words do we have in the Lean lexicon? Do we really need another? It’s a rhetorical question, but would you rather have “sweet azuki bean jam wafer system”? I thought not. “Replaceable core syst

And Now We Have “Kakushin” (sigh…)

By Jon Miller - December 8th, 2006

In the December 9, 2006 Wall Street Journal article titled As Rivals Catch Up, Toyota CEO Spurs Big Efficiency Drive the Toyota Motor Corporation President Watanabe adds another Japanese word to the Lean lexicon: kakushin. Debates coul

When the Customer Defines Value, But They Define It Poorly What Do You Do?

By Jon Miller - December 6th, 2006

If a customer says “Here’s how I want to do Lean.” and the consultant says “That’s not the right way.” and the customer says “Who’s the customer here?” and the consultant says ̶

How to Put Kaizen into Your Culture

By Jon Miller - December 5th, 2006

These are the two steps for how to put kaizen into your culture. First, communicate with your people until you have a common agreement and 100% alignment on these principles: The reason we can make our living is because we serve our cu

One-Hour Low Tech Lean Introduction

By Jon Miller - December 4th, 2006

Today was a lesson for me in just-in-time delivery of Lean training (or Lean Lean training) and also in the value of being prepared. We arrived half a day late to a distribution center where we were asked to give Lean overview training

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 34: The Pitfall of Cost Calculation

By Jon Miller - December 1st, 2006

In this chapter Taiichi Ohno talks about the pitfalls of using cost calculation to justify new equipment purchases and also decisions to scrap or replace equipment based on depreciation. “Whenever we need to make a decision, we e

Hansei on Hansei

By Jon Miller - November 30th, 2006

As Taiichi Ohno said “Check is hansei” when referring to the third step of PDCA. I am doing hansei on the previous blog post on the topic of hansei. I did not think deeply enough about what “hansei” means and wh

The ROI of an Open Office

By Jon Miller - November 29th, 2006

What is the ROI (return on investment) of an open office? That was a question some while back by a reader on this blog about to take the leap and convert their office to an open format. It went unanswered (apologies) and I was recently

Dilbert Rips Six Sigma

By Jon Miller - November 28th, 2006

Kent Bradley from Gemba handed me a Dilbert cartoon yesterday poking fun at Six Sigma. Here is the script: [Point-Haired Boss standing next to “SIX SIGMA” slide] Our company has decided to try something new. [Dilbert] New?

The Toyota Way is Total Company Discipline, Partial Study is GM’s Failure

By Jon Miller - November 27th, 2006

Kan Higashi was President of the NUMMI company, the joint venture between Toyota and GM, when it was started two decades ago. In the October 16, 2006 issue of Nikkei Business (a Japanese magazine) Mr. Higashi shares his insights in a s

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 33: The Difference Between Production Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering

By Jon Miller - November 26th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter by saying “We think of production engineering and manufacturing engineering as distinct things. We distinguish manufacturing engineering as the work to determine the method of manufacturing and pro

Thankful but Dissatisfied

By Jon Miller - November 25th, 2006

Reflecting on this Thanksgiving holiday, I have a lot to be thankful for but I am dissatisfied. It has been a challenging year in many ways, both personally and in business. I am thankful that there are so many problems in front of me

How to Stay Out of Trouble with Mr. Convis

By Jon Miller - November 23rd, 2006

Gary Convis is the senior vice president of manufacturing in North America for Toyota Motor Corporation. In a November 20, 2006 article in the Lexington Herald-Leader titled ,New Tundra Plant Just Shows that … Toyota Keeps on Tru

The Water Spider: What’s in a Name?

By Jon Miller - November 22nd, 2006

One of the things that keeps Lean manufacturing from being boring to the amateur linguist is the many odd-sounding words that make up the Lean lexicon. Kamishibai Heijunka Pareto Yamazumi Takt Andon Jidoka Kaizen Pokayoke Gemba And don

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